Ruined House - an act of public reading - took place today between 10.45am and 11.45am on the Gateshead Millennium Bridge. The first of a new series of public interventions by dot to dot active arts CIC.

I repeatedly read 'A Note on The Title' from the appendices of Bleak House by Charles Dickens, 1853. A list of ten possible titles for the novel.

The transcript is as follows:

1. Tom-All-Alone's / The Ruined House2. Tom-All-Alone's / The Solitary House / [That never knew happiness] / That was always shut up.Bleak House Academy / The East Wind3. Tom-All-Alone's / The Ruined Building/Factory/Mill/House. / That got into Chancery / and never got out.4. Tom-All-Alone's / The Solitary House / where the grass grew.5. Tom-All-Alone's / The Solitary House / That was always shut up / never lighted.6. Tom-All-Alone's / The Ruined Mill / That got into Chancery / and never got out7. Tom-All-Alone's / The Solitary House / where The Wind howled.8. Tom-All-Alone's / The Ruined [Mill] House / That got into Chancery / and never got out9. (A fair copy of 8., without the word 'Mill' written and then deleted as above.)10. Bleak House / and the East Wind / How they both got into Chancery / and never got out.Bleak House.

COLOURING IN CULTURE

A blog by PhD researcher, art historian, curator, writer, activist and community arts practitioner Stephen Pritchard about art, activism and politics in the place where we live.

My research covers participation in art and culture spanning from everyday creativity, participatory art, socially engaged art and social practice to social praxis, political art and activist art; from state instrumentalisation to carnivalesque freedom.